A PLACE FOR ALL HOT WHEELS FANATICS

San Diego Comic-Con Exclusive: SPIDER-MOBILE

Every summer, the biggest comic enthusiasts in the world attend the largest comic-con out there: San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC). Over the years, more and more companies from varying industries have gotten involved with “the con” as it continued to grow. Just a little over a decade ago, Mattel’s Hot Wheels brand had a very little presence at the show, trying to introduce the comic crowd to popular Hot Wheels lines like the Classics and the Ultra Hots. Over the past several years however, the Hot Wheels brand has greatly increased its portfolio of licensed toys. One of those licensors Hot Wheels loves to work with is #Marvel, who has approved Hot Wheels to use their characters in several lines like #Pop Culture, #Character Cars, #RLC and other specialty series. With Hot Wheels now having a whole armada of comic-specific vehicles, the brand’s presence has definitely increased at the con delivering really cool, and unique #SDCC Exclusives.

Among the #SDCC Exclusives for the 2017 con, the team at Hot Wheels concocted up a plan to bring back the “flop of a vehicle” known as the #Spider-Mobile. Having first appeared in a 1974 issue of the Amazing Spider-Man, the Spider-Mobile was essentially a bust. Did Spider-Man, a guy that whips around New York City via web-slinging, really need a vehicle to get around one of the world’s most congested cities? Did he even have a license? If you answered, “no & no”, you would be correct. Hence, the Spider-Mobile was totally unnecessary, and #Marvel dismissed such a useless vehicle. That was, until Hot Wheels brought it back!

Thanks to a Gizmodo article back in June we learned that Marvel’s “4th wall breaking” character, Deadpool had essentially “broke into” the Hot Wheels factory and made his own exclusive for the show. In the end, Deadpool’s “Dead-Buggy” took over 1 out of every 5 #Spider-Mobiles — making for a very limited #Chase car. Mattel doesn’t release numbers on #SDCC Exclusives so we can only speculate as to its rarity, but its not outrageous to think that if this was a 5,000 piece run, there are only 1,000 of the Dead-Buggy cars out there. We may never know it how many are out there, but if the shortage of supply on the secondary is any indicator, the numbers may even be less than what I speculated. These were randomly distributed at the show, however there was one small indicator on the back of the outer box…

If you compare the rear of both outer boxes, you’ll notice that one states (under CONTENTS): “1 VEHICLE, 1 LOVE NOTE” — that is your Dead-Buggy right there! Upon opening the outer box (of either variant), you’ll notice the high-quality, oversized 4-color blister card that the #Spider-Mobile is mounted to. The back of the card recreates the infamous scene in which the Spider-Mobile is unveiled in the comic. If you’re one of the fortunate ones who scored the Dead-Buggy #Chase edition, you’ll notice that Deadpool took stickers and placed them on the front and back, covering up the Spider-Mobile and “the Amazing Spider-Man ” name on the comic.

While it pained me to tear apart such a brilliant packaging concept, I ended up doing what I sought out to do, and opened these bad boys up! Such a cool pair, and two that are deserving of a special spot in my collection. Each #Spider-Mobile is painted like its super heros’ costume, and their #Real Riders Moon Disc Wheels feature the faces of their designated characters: Deadpool & Spider-Man. Even, the license plates vary with Deadpool’s reading, “DDPL” and Spider-Man’s reading, “SPIDEY”.

Deadpool’s “Love Note” is also shown here. Written by DEADPOOL, it reads:

DEAR SPIDER-MAN FAN BOY,
BEING THAT I AM SO NICE AND CARING, I WENT AHEAD AND BROKE INTO THE HOT WHEELS FACTORY® AND SWAPPED OUT THAT PATHETIC EXCUSE OF A SUPER HERO VEHICLE THAT YOU CALL A SPIDER-MOBILE™. BUT DON’T FRET MY LITTLE SNUGGLE MONKEY, BECAUSE PAPA DEADPOOL™ HAS SOMETHING SO SPECIAL AND SO COOL FOR YOU, THAT YOU WILL FORGET ALL ABOUT THE SPIDER-MOBILE. I PRESENT TO YOU THE SUPER SLEEK, SUPER SMOOTH AND SUPER SEXY DEAD-BUGGY! SO SIT BACK AND ENJOY THIS LIMITED EDITION VEHICLE AND REMEMBER WHO LOVES YOU.
CHIMICHANGA
XOXO
DEADPOOL

I’ll admit that upon seeing the initial photos in that Gizmodo article, I thought this was the Hot Wheels #Meyers Manx casting. I learned shortly after that it was indeed not the same casting. I have provided some side-by-side comparisons, just in case you want to compare for yourself. As you can see, totally different!

If you are looking for the Hot Wheels #Spider-Mobile, you may be in luck as these have been selling on eBay for only a couple dollars over their show price of $15. That’s a great deal considering how limited these are and the pure novelty behind the execution. If you paid attention to my “Hot Wheels Booth at San Diego Comic Con is very SNEAKy” post during SDCC, you’ll have noticed that there will be a series in the Hot Wheels #Replica Entertainment line that features vehicles driven by #Marvel superheros to the likes of Ghost Rider’s Charger, The Punisher’s Battle Van and even Deadpool’s Chimichanga Truck. If you’re really hoping the Spider-Mobile gets released again, and at retail, that series may be your best chance to see it as it seems like a likely spot for this casting to be used again.

If its the Dead-Buggy you’re after, #Deadpool himself will probably tell you that you are S.O.L…. unless you do manage to find one for sale and you’re ready to fork over some serious cash. With Deadpool’s Chimichanga Truck being released in that #Marvel#Replica Entertainment series, you can already assume the chance to see another Dead-Buggy #Spider-Mobile variant soon is slim-to-none.